Ginz's '15 NaNo

[Ginz ❤]

10 years ago, a girl discovered something that would change her life forever...

That's not the plot for my novel. It's just that it's been ten years since I first found out about NaNo. Imagine that! TEN YEARS. That first time I participated was the only time I've won (using the term "won" loosely, anyway, because I reached the wordcount goal, but I don't think what I wrote was a novel, it was just a mess. XD) But either way, ever since then I've kept trying most years (I did skip a couple. >>)

I wasn't gonna join this year, but I guess I changed my mind! I have nothing planned, and no time to plan anyway, so I don't even know what I'm doing. XD But I guess it should be fun to kind of wing it? 8D

To be honest, I'm not taking super seriously this year or anything. But I feel like it's too special a year to just let it go by. So we'll see how it goes! Also, an important note to my friends especially: support is appreciated, but please don't pressure me. XD; There are times when I really appreciate having someone to hold me accountable and to push me forward, but this is not one of them. If I'm terribly behind on my wordcount, or If I decide to quit within a week of November because I'm not having fun or because I've figured it was a terrible mistake to join this year, I don't want to feel super guilty about it, okay? Thank you. <3

Now let's have fun with this. =D

[Ginz ❤]

Okay, it's time for UPDATES!

I started on my NaNo a few minutes after midnight on the 1st. I still had absolutely no idea for a plot or anything, though, so I just started writing whatever I came up with, making up a story as I went. I mentioned it on my diary, but it went much better than I thought it would, because I honestly thought my mind would just go blank and I would be unable to write anything at all, so I'm glad that wasn't the case! I wrote a bit over 300 words before going to bed. I was happy to have started, but I was feeling really unsatisfied with what I wrote, because it felt really aimless.

So having slept on it, I decided that I really needed some inspiration and at least a semblance of an idea for this to work out, and thankfully, I got one! Here it is, as I told it to Jay:

"You know those best friend tokens, like matching jewelry, or two halves of a thing? My idea is that maybe my main character has a best friend token like that from a childhood best friend, but they've long since fell out of touch with each other, and she only remembers her when she looks back on that time, as a happy memory. But maybe one day she finds herself wondering about her friend, and she sets out to find her. And like, the first half would be all this detective work, because she probably doesn't remember her full name or anything, so she has very little info to go on... and then the second half can be when they meet and whether her old friend even recognize her or remember her, and how they've changed. I don't know. I can figure that out later.

I like that idea, because it's honestly something I've thought about before, with my own friendships. There's a bunch of friends I've completely lost touch with, and sometimes I wonder about them... I grew up in the time before facebook was commonplace, and even the internet was sort of a novelty, so there wasn't such a thing of adding people in social media and stuff to at least know what they're up to, even if you do fall out of touch, you know? And some people from my past have found me, or I've found them, but some of them I haven't been able to find again, so that's where the idea comes from too. I like that idea much more than the nonsense I started writing about yesterday. XD"

So I deleted the random 300 words I had previously written, and started fresh with my new idea! Yesterday I wrote around 1,500 words, so I was slightly behind on the ideal word count, but today I plan to catch up, and maybe even try to get ahead a little bit. We'll see!

Jay and I had a short word war earlier, so my current total is 1,836 words. I think I'm doing pretty alright! ^^

I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to the NaNo mentality, especially after not having written anything for so long. I'm really out of practice, and I just feel like everything I've written so far is very badly-written (be fair, it probably is >>) but I need not to focus on that and just keep putting my ideas down on, uh, virtual "paper!"